The French central bank has kept the financial affairs of the state, industry and citizens contained securely and discreetly within its grand mansion house headquarters in Paris for more than two centuries.

But now its doors are opening to allow unprecedented scrutiny of the detailed records it holds.

Last month Banque de France governor, François Villeroy de Galhau announced the opening of an open data room, where researchers will be able to explore 400m lines of anonymised data about financial services, companies and households.

Open data is no defence against future financial shocks or banking crises, said Villeroy de Galhau at the inauguration of the new facility.

But the governor hoped new models of risk or early warning systems might emerge from detailed analysis of the bank’s vast, granular datasets.

This was the start of a new era of “transparency and innovation” at the Banque de France, he added.

Does the room live up to its name?

Is this truly open data or a widening of access to big data?

Many central banks, including the Banque de France, the German Bundesbank and the Bank of England, have published free-to-access, time-series statistics online about national economic performance for some years.

Indeed, the Bank of England describes sharing more macro-economic data online as a strategic priority. But publishing macro-economic data about the state of the nation is less contentious than sharing micro-economic data: granular information about individual households or companies.

Still, sharing data has proved more contentious amid concerns about privacy. Academics and privacy campaigners warn that sensitive information could be “de-anonymised” if separate datasets are combined.

So, to take advantage of the Banque de France’s new open data room and explore its micro-economic datasets, researchers must apply for access.

Their research proposals are vetted by a panel drawn from senior figures at the bank, the economic research centre CEPII and the HEC business school in Paris.

If approval is granted, researchers can only access the datasets using three computer terminals in a corner office at the bank’s Directorate of Statistics in rue du Louvre in Paris’s first arrondissement.

“Strictly speaking, it’s not open data as it’s not free of restrictions on who accesses it,” says Carla Bonina, lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at Surrey Business School.

“If you have to show credentials to access data, that’s not what open data is. But I really welcome the move by the Banque de France as a sign that financial services are not going to be excluded from the open data movement.”

Attitudes to data

The move by the French central bank also underlines different attitudes towards open data in different countries.

While Villeroy de Galhau linked open data to potential improvements to economic policy and governance, debate in the UK has focused on competition, with British regulators exploring how widening access to data can increase consumer choice. Elsewhere, in Central or South America, for example, transparency as the antidote to corruption has been the driving issue towards openness.

“What I see very clearly in the field of financial services is that the UK has an agenda that open data means business,” says Bonina.

“If you move to other regions, for example Latin America, that agenda lags behind because people are hoping to use open data for other purposes, democracy and transparency, perhaps because those principles or goals are far more a priority in the region.

“Of course, there have been a lot of startups that are engaged in democracy and transparency here too, but again, business interest in open data is very strong in the UK.”

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) declared this summer that British financial institutions should implement an “open banking system” by early 2018.

This followed efforts earlier in the year by a UK working group of open data experts, bankers and fintech specialists to develop an “open banking standard”.

The broad aim of open banking is to make it easier for customers to manage money across different financial services providers.

Instead of juggling separate accounts, open banking would give consumers a rounded view of their financial position across different providers “through a single digital app”. That means consumers would have more power to choose how to share and consolidate their data across different financial providers.

Open banking and challenger brands

But open banking could also help new firms enter a market dominated by long-established, national and international brands.

According to a statement released by the CMA this summer: “Older and larger banks do not have to compete hard enough for customers’ business, and smaller and newer banks find it difficult to grow.”

But the co-founder of one new UK challenger bank said the larger question was not ease of access to granular data, which banks can acquire from credit reference agencies, but who controls it.

Tom Blomfield, co-founder and CEO of Monzo, believes that the UK approach to data sharing appeared to have different core motives – creating consumer benefit via competition – compared to what was happening in France.

But Blomfield adds: “Looking beyond financial services, machine learning and AI will dramatically impact society in the next 10 years. But crucial to machine learning is a huge quantity of data. So, whoever has the most data will win: that’s basically Facebook and Google.”

Bonina agrees: “It’s not the same for you and me to sit at a computer and try to use datasets we find interesting compared to big companies like Google, Facebook or banks which have computing power to really process the data.

“The idea that the average citizen is empowered just because they have access to data is not really accurate. We still need more debate about who benefits from openness?”

The future

So, fast-forward five years: will the move towards more open data by the Banque de France lead to better protection against economic shocks?

Will an open banking standard in the UK lead to better choices and more control for consumers in practice? Time will tell.

But the difference in emphasis in the UK and France represent different notions of how widening access to data can serve the public good.

Neither is right, nor wrong – but combined they represent a powerful argument for more openness with financial data in future.